I Can Assimilate Everything

In another corner of the Sea of Thalassara, where the luminescent waters created pockets of impossible calm, a scene unfolded that would have broken the minds of most beings.

Arya floated in the waters with the ease of someone born to impossibility.

She currently looked to be at ten years old- though her accelerated growth made such measurements almost meaningless as she had developed into something that defied conventional understanding of what a child could be.

Her silver purple-gold hair floated around her like a stellar corona, while her silver-green eyes held the kind of focus usually reserved for beings who had studied reality for centuries!

Her face showed utmost concentration as she stared at the figure floating ahead of her.

The stellar Constellation Dream Body of Achilles hovered in the water, his form more solid here than it should have been, holding a mass of multicolored light that writhed and pulsed in his hands.

The ball wasn't just energy…it was actualized loose authority of the Regulation of Quantum, broken down into portions that wouldn't immediately overwhelm a developing consciousness.

He planned to throw this ball of Quantum, and for his daughter to then…catch it!

They were… playing catch. With fundamental forces of reality.

"Okay, I'll throw the next one," Achilles said, his voice carrying the patient tone of a father teaching his daughter to ride a bicycle, if bicycles were made of probability and could exist in multiple states simultaneously.

"Be sure to catch it this time. The moment I throw it, distance will be rendered null…it will have already arrived. Then, you can assimilate it!"

Arya nodded with the seriousness of someone preparing for battle, her small form tensing in anticipation. Her hands came up, already glowing with purple-gold energy that marked her as undeniably Adrastia.

Achilles threw the bundle of Quantum forward.

BOOM!

The scene that followed defied physics in ways that physics hadn't known it could be defied.

The ball of Quantum authority didn't travel through space…it simply was at Arya's hands the moment it left his, the distance between them becoming a suggestion that reality had chosen to ignore!

Arya caught it with an expression of pure joy that immediately shifted to intense concentration.

"ASSIMILATE!" her small voice shouted, the command carrying weight that made the Sea around them ripple.

The multicolored light began flowing into her form, each strand carrying understanding of how reality operated at its most fundamental level.

Her body glowed as she absorbed concepts that most beings couldn't even perceive, much less integrate into their existence.

This was how the Last Adrastia Emperor King was spending time with his daughter…playing catch with the building blocks of existence itself!

As he watched her absorb the bundle of Quantum, her form flickering between states as she processed the new understanding, Achilles smiled with pride while simultaneously processing information from his various other perspectives.

A prompt materialized in his consciousness:

|+50 Units of Existential Authority of Fables gained|

|Cause: Successfully steering a heavy narrative toward its final direction through background manipulation|

|The meeting between the Eighth Adrastia Emperor King and Chancellor Mackiy has created ripples that will change the conflict structure of the Star Seas|

…!

Yes, this was how Fables truly worked. Direct action generated some narrative energy, but orchestration…being the invisible hand that moved pieces into position, that created exponentially more authority.

He didn't need to personally confront every enemy when he could arrange for them to confront each other, their conflicts generating narrative energy he could harvest from a distance.

He had poked a hornet's nest deliberately. The Founders of the Infinite Radiance Sovereignty and Void Dominion Empire were still beyond his current capability to face directly…Tier 8 or 9 existences that had accumulated power over eons.

But their limbs, their generals, their systems…those he could manipulate, creating chaos that would weaken the whole while strengthening himself.

The Nar'Thyss would soon begin sensing that their carefully crafted Fables weren't flowing as they should. Narratives would start deviating from expected patterns, coincidences would align in ways that suggested purpose rather than chance.

And when they investigated, he would be there, inserted into their own story as a character they hadn't written.

Even now, as he played with his daughter, another part of his consciousness maintained his infiltration of the Nar'Thyss domain.

His butterfly form moved among them undetected, observing the Tier 5 Nar'Thyss Vel'Khari'Zan as he directed the Fables of an entire Butchering Ground.

All this time, Achilles had been releasing silent spores modified with his terrifying authorities of Regulations.

These weren't physical spores but narrative seeds, invisible modifications to the story-space around the Nar'Thyss. They flowed into their bodies…if bodies was even the right word for beings made of condensed narrative, without them ever knowing.

With his spores integrated into their existence, he would gradually gain control over their very being, and subsequently their Fables. They would become characters in their own stories, unaware that someone else had picked up the pen.

He would take it one step at a time, patient as entropy itself.

All the while, he would continue assimilating the grand Regulations…Quantum, Inevitable Entropy, Spatial Tension, and others he had yet to discover.

The Existential Authority of Fables would grow with each narrative he influenced, each story he redirected.

He instinctively felt that the distant Ninth Echelon of any assimilation would be the highest for now…the key, perhaps, to transcending the Null Scale entirely and entering Level Zero: Pre-Civilizational Existence.

That was where true power lay, where beings operated on principles that made current reality seem like rough drafts.

So he would continue steadily, methodically, inevitably.

Until the Founders themselves, until even the strongest of the Nar'Thyss, would be like children before him…ironically, less capable than his actual child who was currently absorbing fundamental forces with the joy of someone catching butterflies.

"You ready for another?" He began forming another ball of Quantum.

Arya hiccupped with sudden panic, her hands waving frantically. "Wait, Father! Let me calibrate my Existence Corruption Value a little... wait!"

Her voice carried the particular distress of someone who had eaten too much at dinner being offered dessert…wanting it desperately but knowing there were limits.

Achilles laughed, the sound carrying through multiple dimensions of perception. "Take your time. We have all the time in existence."

…!

And they did. Time was just another force he could manipulate, another tool in his ever-expanding arsenal.

While his daughter adjusted to her new understanding of Quantum mechanics, while his father met with former allies and enemies, while Rose grew their second impossible child, while the Nar'Thyss continued their games unaware they were being played…Achilles orchestrated it all!